The Heart's Fire
by lilxmzxit
Summary: Eight years after battling the Green Death, Berk's dragons are finally settled in. Only Toothless seems miserable, but even Hiccup can't figure out why... it's more interesting than the crap summary sounds, i promise! please R&R :
1. A Foreword

A Foreword on: _The Heart's Fire_

Let me first say: _The Heart's Fire_ is a fanfiction based entirely on the Dreamworks film "How To Train Your Dragon" and not the book written by Cressida Cowell, which it was based on. This story, therefore, takes a great deal of creative license with the fact that to the Vikings, the Night Fury was the rarest breed and virtually nothing was known of it. Even after Toothless was gentled, he seemed to be the only Night Fury around in a world populated by Nadders and Gronkles, Terrors and Nightmares and two headed Zipplebacks. Even after battling the Green Death and living to tell the tale, what did the Viking village of Berk really know about their most fearsome enemy turned ally: the Night Fury and the one and only example of the breed they had ever known? The answer is – not very much.

Set eight years after the Battle of the Green Death, which freed the dragon clans and allied them to the Vikings of Berk. Since I was unable to find an exact age for either Hiccup or Astrid in the movie (if someone knows what age they were supposed to be, please let me know and I'll adjust accordingly) I'm going to take creative license and say they were fourteen at the time of the Battle. This puts the young teen Viking gang from the movie in their early twenties. Adult life is just getting into full swing for the motley crew and Berk is just about ready to see in a new generation that will have never lived without dragons living and working by their sides.

Disclaimer ~ I own none of the canon characters. (Hiccup, Astrid, Toothless, Stoick, Gobber, Snotlout, Fishlegs, Ruffnut, Tuffnut, etc.) I have none of the rights to any aspect of the How To Train Your Dragon story or trademarks (though I wish every night upon a star that I did!)


	2. Waiting In Vain

Note – the terms in "Drakish", the language I've cobbled together for the dragons, is a wonderfully mix n' matched 'do of Gaelic, Norwegian and Swedish words, moshed together in horribly ungrammatical but delightfully fun (at least for me) ways.

The cold claws of the gusty Norrdvind sent the embers in the earthen nest to tumbling. One of the coals, its heart glowing a vibrant orange, came to rest against the blunt and leathery scaled nose of the Night Fury as it stirred to wakefulness. The sun had barely slipped beneath the sea and a wispy net of clouds was being dragged aside in the sky, freeing the bright flecks of the stars from obscurity. In the smoldering bowl of earth, the Night Fury stirred again and lifting its head, turned its golden gaze to the sky. A shiver, almost imperceptible, rippled along the entirety of the black dragon's lithe form and the pebbled scales about its nostrils wrinkled delicately as it tested the air. Probing the wind; as it did every sundown and every dawn. With one fluid motion, the slender creature rose and padded towards the high cliffs that formed the coast of the island's southern side. As it walked, it tilted its head to and fro, the movements finite and careful, its ears and crests fluttering. Listening to the wind; as it did every sundown and every dawn. At the cliff's very edge, where the Norrdvind was strong and snatched at the Night Fury's folded wings, it stopped and turned its great glowing eyes once more to the sky, then to the tossing sea. Searching the horizon; as it did every sundown and every dawn. But the sky and the wind remained, as they did every sundown and every dawn….empty.

A shuddering sigh escaped the dragon's lungs, its head drooped and a low, sobbing moan wrenched itself from the creature's throat. The sigh sent a shiver, this one larger than the first, along the dark body and the inky scales shimmered mutedly, like velvet. In the bright spring moonlight one could see that the scales were not absolute black in hue but dusted in the faintest way with emerald. So dark was this shade of green that it bordered on ebony and would only have been seen at a close range and on nights well lit by the moon and stars.

_::Home. Home. Come home. Home, my Dwyn. Home…::_

A second halting moan, quieter than the last, trickled free from the dragon's maw as she spread her wings and flung herself into the wind. For an instant her form was silhouetted against the sterling moon as she arced back towards the high mountains at the island's center, then she was lost from sight; a cloud amongst clouds, a shadow amongst shadows.


	3. Spring's Awakening

In the village of Berk, the snows were melting at last. Frail blades of grass and weeds had begun to sprout profusely in the mud and frost now rimed the rooftops only in the wee hours of the morning. This day had dawned with a frail blue sky and the first Vikings to blink slowly and sleepily at the pale sunlight were jarred suddenly awake by a stentorian roar that made the timbers of half the village huts rattle in their foundations. A dull thud, sounding for all the world like a mountain boulder being dislodged from a cliff face and thundering to earth, resounded as two bull Gronkles collided midair. Fluttering in dizzying circles around the burly pair and squealing her encouragement was a rusty brown female. A few Vikings poked their heads out of their doors and windows or squinted up into the sky for a better look, but only three refrained from returning to their daily duties (or bedrolls). Fishlegs was one of the three, for the thunderous row taking place above the cliffs of Berk was over Horrorcow, his faithful she-Gronkle. His two companions, who cheered or booed raucously every time the bulls clashed were Blackeye Bergesen and Grunt "The Runt" Falstad. Blackeye's big granite grey male looked as if it were quite possible that he had been hacked from a slab of stone and possessed a skull that most definitely had been. Blackeye brayed with laughter and dealth the bearlike Grunt a hearty thump on the back as the grey Rockjaw dealt Falstad's mahogany Mudthunder a clout with his club-like tail. Grunt "The Runt" (so named for the size of his mind, not his muscles. Grunt was dull even for a Viking.) growled back good naturedly and head armed his neighbor. Mudthunder, apparently having decided that Horrorcow wasn't worth more aerial combat this year, rumbled sullenly and head butted Rockjaw in the chest before zooming away to nurse his bruised ego (the proud dragons, strangely enough, bore no grudges over mating season, so his pride would undoubtedly heal fast). This left Horrorcow to make giddy girlish dive rolls around her mate for the next two years. Ah, yes, spring had definitely arrived in Berk.

Beyond the bellows of courting, rutting dragons (which were now the signal for the villagers to move their sheep herds to the high meadows, for the dragons only began mating after the grass there was grown) there were other signs that it was indeed springtime. Just the week before, Ruffnut and Tuffnut had held their Sixth Annual Village-wide Mudwrestling Tournament and had crowned Snotlout "Lord of the Mud" for the second year in a row. Fireworm the Nightmare had paraded her mud soaked and half-naked rider proudly about the village, belching little decorative gouts of sticky flame that fizzled in the mud. Hordes of tiny Terrors had begun to stampede in the streets and meadows, the males squabbling ferociously for the chance to breed one of the handfuls of alpha females. A stiff breeze was blowing in from the North and Hiccup's Fairweather Flight School for the younger Viking children was reopening for the season. The Foulweather Flight Training Squad for the advanced riders had never gone out of session.

As yet a final sign of spring's arrival – and the one the village of Berk was abuzz with – Hiccup had just today asked his cousin in-law Freyja and her Zippleback, Doublejack, to run Astrid's Aerial Combat Academy for the season, no matter how put out Aazure the Nadder would be to miss out on her air time. Not to mention Astrid. But he hadn't mentioned that, knowing it wasn't necessary and Freyja would understand: best not jinx anything. Who knew? Astrid might take it well….one could always hope, Hiccup thought lamely. Aazure really didn't mind so much; it meant more preening time for the vain creature. She was fussier than Hiccup himself was over her Mistress Astrid, knowing intuitively, as all the dragons of Berk did, that the proud young Viking woman was newly with child. Oddly enough, no one was more proud of Astrid's condition than Stoick the Vast himself. The massive red-bearded Viking Chieftain couldn't seem to resist elbowing his son in the ribs, chuckling knowingly and grinning with pride every time he was around. He would tell anyone who would listen (and loudly) that if anyone needed anymore proof that his son was a grown young Viking now, here it was! Yes indeed, his son was a man.

Hiccup and Astrid had been married two years ago. The general village consensus had been that it was about bloody time and why hadn't it happened sooner? Astrid maintained that she hadn't been ready to tie herself down to a hearth too soon and Hiccup still insisted that he'd refused to ask Astrid's hand in marriage till he'd learned to throw a proper punch _back _at his lovely fiancé ("You know…she's always punchin' me in the arm every time I mess up? I wanna learn to stand on my own two feet! Be a real Viking husband…you know? Yes? No? Maybe…yeah….never mind…"). Even after they were married, it was clear who still swung the battleaxe in _that_ relationship. Hiccup's purportedly improved boxing skills didn't seem to have turned him into the standard gruff and tumble Viking husband a boy was expected to become, but he didn't seem to mind in the slightest. Then again, Hiccup had always been the one to buck the stereotype. Let the village call him whipped: he knew better. In fact, he still frequently gazed at Astrid with the same puppy eyed look he'd given her since they were pre-teens. It was the same look he turned on her now as she stalked into the smithy, her blue eyes glinting dangerously. _Thwack!_

"Hey," he protested mildly, not even glancing up from the dragon girth he was measuring out in leather. He'd gotten better at taking the punches: you had to, living with Astrid. "What was that for?"

"You know perfectly well what that's for! I'm _pregnant_, not _crippled_, Hiccup and Freyja does not need to take over for a season!" She planted her hands on her hips and glared at him, so he put down the piece of leather. Trust Astrid to get straight to the point.

"_Astrid_, it's our first child! I'm entitled to be a just a little tiny bit protective, don't you think…" he put his hands on her still slim waist. "Come on! Let me be a…a big protective Papa Bear! " he wheedled, giving a mock growl and shooting her a pleading look. She snorted skeptically, because Hiccup couldn't even begin to be remotely bearlike, but couldn't help smiling. The soft, childish oval of his face was almost gone, replaced by stronger lines, but his hair was still an unruly brown mop on his head. Though he was not and never would be, the barrel-chested giant of a man his father was, Hiccup had changed since the dragons had come to Berk. He had grown taller, nearly matching Stoick in height if not in breadth. While his grasshopper frame had not bulked up with brawn the way Snotlout's and Tuffnut's had, years of working at the forge and handling the big dragons as village Dragonmaster had put lean muscle and a bit of heft on a body that had been preposterously gangly as a child. When he walked, it was with a slight dipping limp on his prosthetic calf and foot. Despite the cuts and calluses that crisscrossed his palms, he still had a youth's hands; long fingered and delicate. And the hazel green eyes that stared, love struck and imploring at her now, still hadn't lost that boyish gleam she'd fallen in love with years upon years ago. She hoped they never did.

"_Oohhhh_, fine!" She threw up her hands and rolled her eyes. "I don't know _why _I let you talk me into these things. Freyja can teach until the baby comes, but don't you think for a _minute, _Mister, that I won't be back in that saddle as soon as possible. Aazure and I won't abandon the school, baby or no!"

The Nadder, upon hearing her name, stuck her spiked head through the smithy door with an inquisitive, "_Raawwnk?"_ and blinked her yellow eyes.

"They won't keep us out of the air forever, darling. I promise." Astrid reassured her dragon, patting the scaly nose affectionately before rounding on her husband. "And..and you…you….oh, never mind!" she huffed, and not being able to resist a moment longer, grabbed Hiccup's face in both hands and planted a kiss on his lips before rushing out of the smithy and hopping onto Aazure's back.

"Hey!" Hiccup called teasingly after her. "What was _that_ for?" and grinned when he heard her grumble, "Men!" before Aazure's wing beats drowned out any further words.

His smile faded quickly, however, as Toothless, who had been napping in the warm corner of the smithy by the forge, twisted in his sleep and gave a piercing wail. The jet black Night Fury started violently awake, his tail thrashing wide and shattering a clay pot of water that Hiccup or Gobber had been careless enough to leave within striking range. The dragon's bottle green eyes roamed frantically about the forge room until they came to rest on Hiccup, who had charged over at the first sign of his dragon's distress. The young man had dodged the lashing tail with practiced ease and was now patting his faithful companion's shivering flank. Hiccup's eyes, bright with concern, met his dragon's and without a word he tried as hard as he could to reassure his dearest friend that everything was alright.


	4. Night Terrors

_Note ~ I have changed the story rating because the more I thought about it the more I realized that I may add in some naughtiness and violence, but none of it will be graphic. A "T" rating is probably going to end up being more accurate. Well, without further ado! Chapter Four!_

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"Hey buddy, hey. Hey, it's okay. You're alright." Hiccup crooned soothingly to his dragon and glanced up briefly as Astrid and Gobber appeared silhouetted in the doorway.

"Toothless alright there now, Hiccup?" Gobber asked, his broad features askew with worry.

"I turned Aazure around the second I heard him…" Astrid said, the concern plain on her pretty face. Toothless had rested his head on Hiccup's knee, his great green eyes half closed and his ear flaps flopped despondently back. His shaking had stopped, but his normal alert expression was absent. Hiccup stroked the broad head in a familiar and involuntary motion, his gaze following Warfly, the biggest and eldest male Terror in Gobber's pack of twelve. The rust and berry red little dragon with his twisted horns and quick, needle sharp claws approached Toothless, dragging a large smelt across the floor. Blinking his pale golden eyes, he chirruped loudly as he deposited the morsel of a fish at the Night Fury's paws, then scuttle-glided back to his perch on Gobber's meaty shoulder. The big man chucked the Tiny Terror affectionately under the chin, his eyes still focused on his most beloved former apprentice and the heroic black dragon who, together, had transformed the village of Berk.

Toothless gathered his legs beneath him to stand and Hiccup rose with him, one hand remaining on the dragon's withers, and watched as his scaly companion swallowed Warfly's proffered smelt. The proud Night Fury looked quietly around at the three familiar human faces, then slipped like a shadow from the forge room. As soon as the dragon was out the door, Hiccup's tall frame folded onto a short stool and he let his forehead drop into his hands. After a moment of silence, Astrid moved to stand by his side, but said nothing. Pressing Hiccup for an answer now would only make it harder to get a coherent sentence out of him. While still far from the model Viking warrior, one thing about Hiccup that was undeniably Viking was his stubbornness. Even if he wasn't bullheaded in the traditional Berkish way, with Hiccup things were always: try, try again. And again. And again. Until the problem was solved or he got a new gadget just right. But try and pry an answer out of Hiccup when he wasn't prepared to speak and he'd stutter and stammer his way to Valhalla and back.

"I don't know what to do…" he murmured into his hands, which had pushed his long forelock out into spikes from the sides of his palms. "I don't even know what that problem _is_!" he exclaimed, looking up wildly at Astrid and Gobber. "You both remember how it used to be…he never used to wake up this often, never used to spook and shy. It's never been so bad – ever!"

He did not need to explain: everyone in the room knew what Hiccup was talking about. Shortly after coming to live permanently in the village, the Vikings of Berk had noticed that once or twice a year perhaps, and never more often than that, the heroic Toothless seemed to suffer from violent nightmares. Over the years, however, the problem had grown steadily worse. The Night Fury had begun to wake flailing and shrieking first monthly, then weekly. Now and for the past year, the black dragon with a reputation for a heart of gold and nerves of steel had been known to spook at things as common as thunder and lightning, large ocean waves and even other dragons who startled him. The week before Yule, Stealthwyrm (Ruff and Tuff's Zippleback) had fallen asleep deep in a snowdrift and had sneezed himself awake just as Toothless passed by. Startled, the Night Fury had whipped about and unleashed one of his hellish purple firebombs on the unsuspecting Stealthwyrm. The arrogant Zippleback had sulked until New Year's (double the heads and you get double the ego) until Toothless had, dragging his tail in a much ashamed manner, presented the other dragon with a pair of venison haunches as a token of apology. Sleeping potions, petitions to the gods and numerous sheep sacrifices had been no help in restoring peace to the Night Fury's apparently troubled mind. Dragons slept very little: a few hours before dawn and a few before dusk with catnaps scattered throughout the day, but Toothless was barely sleeping at all.

"I don't know what to do – there's just nothing left to try…..you don't know how he looks at me!" Hiccup had his hands knit up in his hair again and his voice was tortured. He sounded on the verge of tears and neither Astrid nor Gobber could think less of him for it. The dragon had saved his life and he had saved the dragon's. Together the pair had taken down a tyrant, reclaimed an ancestral island that had been lost generations ago in a raid to the rival town of Ivar. They had helped build Berk as it was today, with the fierce Vikings living alongside their equally fierce dragon companions. Toothless was more than simply a valuable partner and despite the fact that he and Hiccup would never speak in words, he was without a doubt the young Viking man's best friend.

"He hasn't looked at me that way since…since…" he shook his head and his shoulders slumped tiredly. Astrid couldn't remember seeing him this helpless since before he had battled the Green Death and won, eight years ago. She found she couldn't stand it and a spark of loathing flared up for whatever amorphous thing was making Toothless so miserable.

"_Gods_, he just looked so terrified! So hopeless....I haven't seen him like that since the day I shot him out of the sky…it kills me to see him that way!" he trailed off miserably and Astrid gave his arm a comforting squeeze. Hiccup reached up without raising his head and touched her hand softly before standing.

"Go on ahead, Astrid. Don't you worry about me. I'm a big, bad Viking. I can take care of myself." He shot her a lopsided grin that didn't quite manage to press the apprehension from his eyes. Knowing he needed time to himself, Astrid made the occasion a rare one and didn't resist. As Aazure winged away, Hiccup patted Gobber on the shoulder, remembering to scratch the little Warfly under the chin.

"Thanks…for being here, I mean." He told the big man earnestly and couldn't help but chuckle a little as the burly smith made an excuse for his un-Viking moment of sentimentality, then warned him to take care so he wouldn't have to bail the Dragonmaster's scrawny behind out of trouble like he used to have to all the time and stumped off on a limp twice as bad as Hiccup's own. Heaving a sigh, the young Viking ran his hands through his shaggy hair and from the doorway of the smithy looked out towards the ocean. He already knew what he would see: his beloved dragon standing at the edge of the sharp drop down to the churning waters, gazing desperately Northward, the look of a lost soul on his reptilian face and in his sorrowful green eyes.


	5. Spotless Mind

I promise I didn't forget about this story! I'm not giving up on it!

I finished finals about a week ago and only just started to get a handle on my summer schedule for work and all. But now...back to the story! I will try and update less sporadically at least until the end of summer...but maybe I can get it done by then...if I stick to my outline schedule. .

Thank you all for your patience!

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It had not been so bad before, when he had come to the Cold Sea; when Green Death had still been Empress. Those had been bad days, full of hunts and raids and fights with the terrible Vikings but not as difficult as the days were now, despite how things had changed. The way the dragons had seen it, the Empress had hoarded food and so had the Vikings. This made the Vikings bad to them in the same way Empress Green Death was….even if the Vikings were small and had no wings and breathed no fire. How silly they had all felt when they realized the Vikings could not live all winter as dragons could on the fat saved from as few as three kills. And here the dragons had stolen, thinking they were doing no real harm: believing that at least these selfish two-legged hoarders would see some of the justice they wished would visit Green Death. But then he had been torn from the sky and robbed of flight and the boy-creature responsible; a scrawny, hapless thing quite unlike the rest of his Viking kin, had helped him fly again. More than that, he had helped destroy the Empress, who had made the Cold Sea Coven of dragons so miserable and executed so many. The boy-creature Hiccup was now a man-creature and even more beloved to the Night Fury than ever. He'd have flown to the moon and back for his Viking.

Before the Battle of the Green Death, he had not suffered so from these dreams and visions. Why they came only in pieces and so jarringly he did not know, but he was certain they were memories. They must be memories of his life before he had come to the islands in the Cold Sea. For though he could not piece together much sense of the images that would unexpectedly bombard him, he knew one thing: he had not been hatched at the Cold Sea Coven. He had awoken on the shores near the Coven Cavern some ten years ago, wet and draggled and aching, barely able to fly or even stand on his own and with a terrible ache in his skull. It was a female Nightmare who had found him and dragged him out of the tide pools and to dry ground. Her name was Emberglow and she had been in awe that it was she who had discovered a Night Fury upon Cold Sea shores. From time to time, she had told him, Night Furies had been known to turn up in the skies around the Coven. They were always males, almost always young and were alone or in pairs. They would stay with the dragons and Cold Sea Coven until the weather improved; sometimes only days, sometimes for months, helping with raids and hunts before they determined that the weather had improved enough for them to take wing to their mysterious northern homeland, which they called Norrdbergen. None had ever been willing to speak of the legendary homeland of the Night Furies. However, it had been generations since any Night Furies had come to the Coven and some were starting to think that the rare breed was either legend or had died out. But here he was, Emberglow had said, though she had never heard any stories of a Night Fury who washed up on shore. All the tales she'd been told involved them blowing in with gales. Perhaps, she had asked, before he got his bearings and left, might he tell her about the mysterious Norrdbergen and about himself? She had ever wanted to know just a little about Night Furies: the distant cousin species hardly any of the Cold Sea Coven ever had the opportunity to acquaint. Certainly, he thought, he would have no problem telling her about...suddenly and with a sickening rush he realized that nothing came to mind. There was no memory, no recollection of this Norrdbergen that Emberglow was certain he must have come from. His vision swam and he had sat down hard on the pebbled beach as he realized something that made him want to keen with fear: he could not remember his own name. He must have one, for a dragon his age would not be unnamed. He must have been somebody and it pierced him through with a cold stab of fear and a hot lance of pain simultaneously that he had absolutely no idea who that somebody might have been. What's more, it became clear over the following days that his injuries had affected the internal compass all dragons are endowed with. He could not tell North from South in a fog or a mist and had to rely almost entirely on sight to navigate. In that condition there was no way he would ever find the place the Coven called Norrdbergen, which they all assumed must have been where he came from. He didn't deny it: as much as it distressed him to admit it, their guess was as good if not better than his. All he remembered, he had told Emberglow, haltingly, was a great storm and a voice in the storm telling him to bank hard left. Then out of nowhere a wave: a great wall of water and he had been spinning out of control, the air forced from his lungs and his wings crumpled to his side like useless wet leaves. There had been an explosion of white in his vision and a mountain of ice slapped him down, cold and wet and his head snapped back quicker than his eye could track the heaving water about him, then there had been black and then there had been nothing. We will help you, Night Fury, she had said gently. She did not ask him what he wished to be called: instinctively she knew, for Nightmares were tactful creatures, that if he could not remember his own name, he would not appreciate being pressed to create a new one. It was simple enough to call him Night Fury without confusion, for he was the only one in the Coven. He didn't mind: it made him someone and that kept at bay the pain of being no one he could remember.

Every so often he would remember: things would come in vivid flashes that would startle him violently. For years it had been nothing but the storm and the wave and the wet and the black. But for in past few years he had begun to see more flashes, all of them unexpected and startling. There was a great bonfire, an island surrounded by mist and dangerous rocks, Night Furies in the air, jewel green meadows, but nothing about those who knew him or any clues to who he might have been. He could piece none of it together. So he concentrated on serving the Empress as the rest of the Coven did. True he could have left, but where would he have gone? Mostly he could forget his loneliness, but that became difficult at times, because every dragon in the Coven had family of some sort...except for him. But the visions had gotten worse in recent years and had started to become unbearable. It was not just their content that made him so miserable but the way they came and went abruptly and without warning. The unexpected flash of memory, the onslaught of churning dreamscapes every time he closed his eyes left him edgy and irritable. More and more he sought solitude so that his outbursts would not disturb his Hiccup and Hiccup's female the Fierce Astrid. The time alone, he reasoned, was what he needed to sort through his dreams and visions. It took all his strength to ignore the fact that he never got any closer to unraveling clues about his identity. True he knew where he was likely from: the land called Norrdbergen, which he assumed was the wild island in his dreams, but how to get there and who he was to the dragons there...? He had no idea. For all he knew he was an outcast and had been flying in the storm in exile. He stood on the cliffs overlooking the docks at Berk, but he did not see the ships, instead his most recurring dream image came to mind. It was the face of a Night Fury: a female, with golden eyes and velvety scales kissed with the faintest green. He did not know who she was or who she had been to him - Mother? Lover? Sister? Friend? But her face had burned itself into his brain and seared itself down to the heart. Whoever she was, she was the key. If he could but meet her, he was certain of this as he was certain of nothing else, he would remember everything.


	6. Motherland

To My Readers:

I'm so sorry this has taken so long! I promise I haven't given up on this story .

Between work and other things it's just been so very hard to find a time to sit down and write. Hope this chapter will not be too boring for you all!

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The day dawned clear and cold over the jagged cliffs of Norrdbergen, as it was wont to do even on late spring days. Dark granite peaks pushed into the weak blue of the sky and the island lay heavy in the water: its rough mountains jutted up like spines on the back of a sleeping dragon. From the coast its lush sheltered glens in the steep sided valleys were totally obscured by barren and unforgiving rock. To any seafarer, it seemed a place utterly desolate. Here and there, if one looked closely, wisps of smoke could be seen trickling up from the lee sides of the peaks. It was early yet; the last of the night's stars still freckled the sky and the sun's rays were still watery and weak. It was an hour during which the Night Furies would be nesting, as they did every sunset and every dawn. The smoke rising from the mountainside dens came from the Night Furies' nests of burnt earth. On foggy days, it was impossible to tell if the Night Furies slept or wakened, but on such as day as this, one gilded with slender rays of sunlight, trickles of den-smoke were clearly visible.

On the sheltered side of a hulking cliff, the Månad Clan kept their dens and made their nests. Månad Clan was one of the ancient Four: Månad, Stjärna, Vind, Blixtrande. It was led by Sort and Runa. The pair were the Hedra: honored, the equivalent of alphas to the clan and though both were long past their prime they were good leaders and beloved. At the moment, they and the entirety of their clan were nested for their morning rest, inner fires banked and luminescent eyes shut to the rising sun. But one fire among the Clan was not banked. One pair of eyes still scanned the horizon. Restless and unhappy, the female with the golden eyes and green tinted scales lay awake in her warm nest.

_::It is not too late. Solstice has not come. He will come before Solstice. He must come, he must!::_

The long, slender tail flicked to and fro in agitation, scattering hot ash. She felt as though her heart would burst. Summer was near and this year the Eve of the Solstice meant the Great Fire was to be lit and mates would be flown. The female shivered despite the mildness of the spring air and the heat of the earth beneath her belly. On Solstice at midnight, once every ten years, the clans would rise to mate. This year would be her first Solstice of Fire, for she was turning ten. It was during the last that she had been conceived and hatched. Most females her age were giddy with anticipation. They had spent the last eight years: since they had learned to fly, courting in preparation for this Solstice, for that night. But then, she thought, most females had a male they knew would fly them. Most females had some idea with whom they wish to mate and with whom they would be happy to spend the rest of their life. First though, before they could have their happiness, the Hedra of the Four Clans must rise to mate at sundown on the Solstice Eve. If but a single clan's Hedra failed to choose a mate before the night was done something would go horribly wrong. None knew why, only that it had happened a scattered handful of times in the past and that the effects were devastating. Every egg clutched the year a Hedra did not rise would fail to quicken and would rot. Not a single hatchling would be born that year: an entire generation would be lost.

The yellow eyed female shivered once more and hid her head beneath her wing, forcing herself into the mists of sleep, unable to face the frail empty beauty of the morning sky. On the Eastern side of the island, in the heart of Blixtrande territory, the same rising sun found another Night Fury lingering on the edges of wakefulness. He was a broad-chested male, possessed of short muscular legs and a thick, powerful tail. His half-shut eyes glowed a wild orange: unfocused on anything in the real lands they were, for at present they focused on the dream world and the form and face of a female therein. Her slender shape and golden eyes twined about his dreams, both waking and sleeping. In his mind's eye he saw her; black-green body pliant, her luminescent yellow eyes willing. When the eve of Solstice came, she would be his. He would fly her and none would rise in opposition; of this he was certain. It was inevitable, really, that he would fly her. There had been no real threat to his unspoken claim in years. He would fly her and then she would be his till the day she died. With such satisfying thoughts occupying his mind, the orange eyed dragon drifted off to sleep.

* * *

It was long past dawn now and the Night Furies of Norrdbergen were awake. The fishing hours of the morning were drawing to a close and many of the black dragons had taken the last of their catches up to the high cliffs, where they could eat and preen in the shade. A palpable energy seemed to hang in the air: one that had started at the signs of the first thaw and was growing ever more urgent as summer approached. Suddenly, a young female shot like a bullet from the cliff face and into the sky. Many of the still perching Night Furies took up wild fluting cries. Three young males, all of whom strove valiantly to keep up with her aerial acrobatics, followed her immediately. Females were the lighter of the species, more streamlined in build and quicker in the air. This lavender-eyed young female was no exception and she pirouetted through the air with the grace of a dancer, the males in hot pursuit. As they flew, the males set up a throaty humming and battered at one another with claws and tails whenever the opportunity presented itself. Then, without warning, the slight female dove, tucking in her wings and plummeting towards the ocean with the wind shrieking from her wingtips. At the sound, a few of the roosting Night Furies glanced up from their fish and a few launched themselves from their perches to do decorative loops in the air. Desperately, the young female's suitors tried to match her pace, dropping speedily from the air in chase. When she was fifty feet from the water's surface she snapped her wings out and shot up and away from the iron gray waters. One of the young males was not so skilled and caught his wingtip on a wave crest. He somersaulted badly, skipping across the waves like a black stone before sinking beneath the water and having to swim, shamefaced and bruised, back to shore. The two remaining males thrummed louder, as if to make up for the volume they had lost, but their lavender lady had lost interest in the chase and fluttered demurely back to her rock outcropping. The noise died down quickly: these courtship flights were not at all uncommon, especially not in the months and weeks leading up to a Solstice of Fire, the golden eyed female observed from the wide and sheltered rocky ledge upon which she sat. Heavy wing beats to her right drew her attention. It was the orange-eyed male landing upon her ledge: in his jaws he clutched a sizeable salmon, which he dropped between them with the mien a king bestowing a gift upon a pauper.

_::Stark.::_

She said quietly, trying to conceal her discomfort: his presence lately instilled in her the urge to take flight abruptly. A sense of decorum, however, demanded that she stay, but she wished dearly that it would not have been deemed ungracious to take wing and leave without any explanation.

_::Aina.::_ He responded solicitously, his voice as smooth as a hatchling's scales. She fought the urge to shudder._ ::Fancy some salmon? I caught it myself, with you in mind.::_ The gaze, she noticed, with which he surveyed her was almost identical to that which he leveled upon the succulent and quite dead fish.

_::Thank you, but I've hunted well today.:: _She replied, managing to maintain a tone both calm and cool. _::Tekla didn't appear to have such luck as I, though,::_ she added, watching him from the corner of her eye. He took care, she noted, to stand in such a way that the muscles in his chest and limbs rippled and his broad wings were bathed in warm light. Probably more concerned with his profile than my stomach, she thought. The juicy fish at their feet was no more than an excuse to strut before her. _::I'm sure she'd appreciate your fine salmon.:: _It was not the response he wanted to hear and she knew it. She did not care: his advances were tiring and unwelcome, not to mention nerve-wracking. Why everyone expected her to swoon and promise herself to him come Solstice Eve was beyond her. Well, it was not exactly beyond her, but she did not understand why everyone seemed to support Stark's conquest in particular.

_::Are you certain?::_ He asked. This was not the first time she had rejected his favors or his company and though each time she did it gracefully as she could manage, she could see he was starting to notice…and that it was starting to grate upon him. His voice had lost some of its smoothness and the glow behind his orange in his eyes crackled faintly. She did her best to seem unperturbed, but there was something unidentifiable in his frustration that shook her and she thought desperately; why, why, _why _could he not set his sights on some other female?

Stark of Blixtrande was not short on admirers: the powerfully built male was, she supposed objectively, very handsome and had much prowess as a hunter. At first his attentions, while never encouraged, were flattering nonetheless. She had assumed that when she made her disinterest apparent he would seek a more 'receptive' dragon; after all, that was the type of female rumormongers insisted he preferred to dally with. The willing sort, to put it plainly. Aina was hardly the submissive and willing sort. She could not fathom his apparent fascination with her. But his unwelcome courtship had continued despite her courteous dismissals and there was something almost lascivious that crept into his tone now when he knew there was no one but her to hear him speak, something unscrupulous and dangerously hungry that had begun to enter his eyes when he watched her. She alone seemed to notice, for he guarded it well when they were with others. There were no other males to relieve her of his presence; none on the island could match Stark in either rank or strength. Dwyn had…but Dwyn had been Hedra and even bold Stark could not compete with that, would not dare to challenge that. Dear, darling clumsy Dwyn. Now Dwyn was gone and her first Solstice of Fire was drawing ever nearer – and there was no sign of Dwyn on the horizon though she watched and watched, no matter that others told her it was foolish and he was surely dead after so long an absence.

_::If you're certain then, Aina.::_ Stark repeated, his voice snatching her from her mind's flight and back to the rocks upon which they stood. He had edged closer than was needed to retrieve his salmon and she blinked as she looked into his unwavering tiger gaze. There was hardly a female on Norrdbergen who wouldn't be breathless right now to have Stark of Blixtrande so close and focused upon her so intently: and Aina found herself breathless to be sure, but due to a creeping sensation of fear, not excitement. _::You know, some day you won't be able to turn your pretty nose up at my offer.:: _He fairly growled, his fangs exposed though he had yet to grasp at the rejected salmon.

_::I appreciate your offer, Stark, but I've hunted well. It would be a waste of a good salmon.:: _Still, she feigned ignorance at the true meaning of his words, pretending with all her might that they were talking about nothing more important than a fish. She refused to meet his gaze; she felt it would only encourage him.

_::Solstice isn't so far away, Aina.::_ The change in his voice, so thorny before and now like an oil-slick, made her turn. He lifted off and a rush of air followed his powerful downward strokes. _::Solstice really isn't so far away.::_


End file.
